


Snowflakes

by HixyStix



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Episode: s02e17 The Honorable Ones, Fall of Lasan, Healing, Hoth (Star Wars), M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24125449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HixyStix/pseuds/HixyStix
Summary: Snow.Zeb's grandmother had told him about such a phenomenon growing up.  It didn’t snow on Lasan, of course, but it did on other worlds and as a kit, he’d loved learning about it.He’d always wanted to see snow someday.  The holos seemed so peaceful.The holos were wrong.  There was no peace to be found in the flakes sticking to his fur.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97





	Snowflakes

If Garazeb Orrelios didn’t know better, he’d think the light white flakes swirling around him were snow. 

His grandmother had told him about such a phenomenon growing up. It didn’t snow on Lasan, of course, but it did on other worlds and as a kit, he’d loved learning about it. 

He’d always wanted to see snow someday. The holos seemed so peaceful.

The holos were wrong. There was no peace to be found in the flakes sticking to his fur.

He stood in the middle of the Royal Palace’s main courtyard, trying to process what he was seeing – or more precisely, what he wasn’t seeing.

Three days ago, this place had been lined with gold and orange ivies, bursting with white flowers in the spring warmth, the green marble floors soaking up the last heat of the day’s sun as the fountains trickled over crafted silver trees and waterfalls. 

The young princes and princesses played their usual game of hide-and-seek in the ivies as the nurses called them to bed. The Queen and her consort rose to give them good night kisses, as they did every evening before watching the sunset though the western gate.

Captain Orrelios gave them each a tight hug as well, setting his bo-rifle aside so he could embrace them properly, also a nightly tradition. He was their protector, but he was family as far as they were concerned. He loved them as much as he loved his own nieces and nephews and had vowed to keep them just as safe. He’d give his life for them in an instant, oath of loyalty or not; there was reason beyond his martial prowess that he led the Honor Guard.

Three hours ago, this place had been full of screams. The ivies were no longer, nor were there burbling fountains to quiet the soul. Captain Orrelios and his guard had fought the invading Imperials fiercely, holding the western gate against the advance. Refugees flooded the palace, seeking to escape the horrible warbling noise and green light of what he would later learn were T-7 ion disruptors. At the time, all Captain Orrelios knew was that they turned the beautiful royal city into a living hell.

With the last visible refugee safely in the palace, Captain Orrelios called for the gates to be closed. He stood in the courtyard, bo-rifle primed and ready, planning to make a last stand to allow the royal family and every other lasat time to escape to the waiting ships.

They never made it. Before Captain Orrelios had even taken aim at the distant Imperials, the ground shook as the palace exploded behind him.

Three minutes ago, some looters with hearts bigger than their brains had pulled Garazeb Orrelios from the rubble, barely breathing but clinging to life anyway.

He awoke to find that there was no longer a royal family for him to guard, no longer a Lasan for him to protect.

All that remained were the piles of bodies the Imperials left behind, lasat and human alike piled on top of each other and lit with fuel, to be incinerated like the rest of the city around them.

He stood in what had once been the courtyard, the one place the royal family relaxed, where they _lived_ , where he’d watched the very reasons he loved his calling play catch and chase each other around the fountains. That past, that possible future, was now rubble, the green marble dusted white with ash.

The world was horrifically silent around him, as the ‘snow’ flurried and swept by in the changing gusts of wind. Nothing else moved, not even Garazeb Orrelios’s chest as he breathed shallowly and slowly. In the distance, where the towers of the city proper should have stood, was only more smoke and ash and fallen stones and utter loss.

The silence was broken by the looters, calling him by his old name, the one he’d introduced himself by before realizing all was lost and he no longer could be the same lasat.

“Captain Orrelios! Hurry! The Imperials will be back any minute to finish the job!”

He supposed he ought to be grateful they’d found him and were offering to get him off-planet, but all Garazeb Orrelios wanted was to be buried under the palace with the little princes and princesses.

Where he belonged.

He couldn’t join them, not honorably, but he could remember them. He bent down and picked up a fistful of dirt and dust and ash.

He swore to never let go. Never forgive. Never forget.

Years later, the snow swirled white around Zeb again.

This time he huddled with Agent Kallus around a glowing meteorite, trying to share enough heat that they could both survive the night.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a massacre,” the agent said, among other plaintive and desperate confessions.

Zeb told him that it was okay, that he’d put Lasan behind him, but the truth was he would never forget his life as Captain Orrelios and how it all came crashing down so suddenly. How he lost everything he once loved, in part thanks to this human curled up next to him, shoulder to shoulder. This man who had hunted him, haunted him ever since they first battled, bo-rifle to bo-rifle.

Kallus’s eyes closed and Zeb wondered if he was sleeping or dying. Wondered why he cared so much. This man admitted to taking part in the end of Lasan and even if he hadn’t pushed the button that destroyed the palace, even if he hadn’t actually given the order to use disruptors like he once claimed, he still _participated._ He still murdered Zeb’s people.

There remained absolutely no reason for Zeb to forgive him, much less allow him to live through the night.

Yet, somehow, remembering Kallus’s earnest tone as he tried to explain himself, watching the man’s eyes flutter behind closed lids, seeing his pale freckled skin flush red with cold, watching him cling to life even as he’d denied it to so many others...

Zeb granted him forgiveness.

Hoth was possibly the cruelest planet Zeb had ever had the misfortune of spending time on – and considering the multitude of hellholes he’d visited for the sake of the Rebellion, that was saying something.

At first, he’d thought it couldn’t possibly be worse than Bahryn, but he forgot one pesky little detail: he only spent one night on Bahryn. Their time on Hoth was lasting _months_.

Like Bahryn, he spent his nights with Alexsandr Kallus. Alex to Zeb, Kallus to the rest of the Rebellion, Agent to no one ever again. The company was by mutual choice, Alex having become his closest friend, if not the love of his life.

Had Captain Orrelios known he would end up loving Alex and being loved in return, had the Zeb of just three years ago known, they would both have vehemently denied the possibility. It wasn’t the least bit plausible for Garazeb Orrelios to care deeply for a man with such a history. 

Zeb couldn’t blame his past selves for their lack of foresight. Alex’s heel-face-turn from Imperial fanatic to wholehearted Rebel had surprised everyone, even Alex.

Wrapping his arms tighter around his golden-haired lover, his partner, his one bright spot in the Rebellion’s darkest days, Zeb tried to make sure Alex was properly covered and protected from the cold. Just outside the base, he knew, the horrible snow fell, packing down solidly from its own weight, turning into ice, freezing toes and fingers and ears and engines and blasters and other necessities of military life. 

Inside their quarters, however, Zeb found himself relaxing. He didn’t let himself be completely at ease – any second an alarm might sound, calling them to battle – but he was able to close his eyes and sleep, protecting both the man he loved and the cause he’d given his new oath to.

In the crucible of Hoth’s ice and snow, Zeb had come to understand that the list of things he truly, deeply cared about had narrowed to just a few entries: Alex, Hera, Jacen, the Rebellion, and protecting the secret of Lira San. He didn’t have the luxury of holding on to too many old hurts, not during a war.

Without realizing it, he’d let Lasan go.

Alex knew Zeb hated the snow, knew it would always bring up bad memories.

Alex brought him to Fest anyway, claiming Zeb would like the planet, in the end.

Fest was cold, Zeb noted as soon as the shuttle’s doors opened. He hated cold. He hated the idea of spending a week here.

He trusted Alex, though, so he followed his husband off the ship without too much complaint.

Forested mountains coated in light, dusty snow covered the planet’s surface. It was a remote planet, peaceful and far from the crowds of the New Republic or the gossipy small towns of Lira San. The few humans who lived there barely looked at them twice, going about their business with quiet industriousness.

Zeb could appreciate that.

Alex rented a speeder and drove them off into the mountains, as if he’d lived on the planet his whole life. He probably did know Fest just as well as the natives; he always researched everything to death; always had to know every single detail, every possibility, every escape. It was a part of Alex’s training Zeb had never been able to convince him to break, no matter how he’d tried. Over time, it’d simply become another facet of Alex that he loved, despite being slightly irritated by it on occasion.

The speeder stopped at a small cottage, built of the local red wood, nestled in the snow with firewood piled on the porch. Zeb started a fire to warm the small space enough that they could sleep and Alex rewarded his efforts with a local delicacy: a hot, creamy, sweet drink that looked like caf but comforted where caf wakened.

“I brought you here for a reason,” Alex said as they settled into the plush couch that sat before the fireplace.

Zeb gave his husband a questioning look. “I did the proposing. We’re already married. You don’t have to ask me again,” he said lightly.

Alex smiled indulgently at the joke, but shook his head. “No. I brought you here so we could talk. So _you_ could talk.”

“So _I_ could talk? What do I need to talk about?”

“Lasan.”

Zeb stiffened. “Lasan is behind me,” he said, stilted and stiff.

With an empathetic look, Alex corrected him. “No, it’s not. You won’t talk about it unless someone else brings it up. You never talk about your childhood or your time in the Honor Guard. You’ve never forgotten the hurt.”

“I _can’t_ forget it.”

“You shouldn’t,” Alex said, seemingly contradicting himself. He waited a second for Zeb to look him in the eye and continued. “But you carry such a weight about it. You’ve helped me forgive myself for my part in it. Why shouldn’t you forgive yourself?”

“I have,” Zeb protested, knowing it was a lie. Knowing Alex knew it was a lie.

“Talk to me, love. Tell me the good things about Lasan that I never got the chance to know. Tell me how you lived, what – and who – you loved. Tell me what you lost and what you keep secret from everyone else.”

Zeb studied Alex as he made his case. His hair was a little unkempt and in his face, trimmed just short enough to keep from getting in his warm amber eyes. In the flickering firelight, skin that Zeb knew was densely freckled seemed clear and flawless, and shadows danced across a face that had learned, over many hard years, to soften and show the adoration and deep care he felt for the people in his life.

Alex meant more to Zeb than anything. What he was asking wasn’t unreasonable, just hard. Could Zeb open up that most secret, painful part of himself to the one person he trusted with the rest of his heart?

Yes. He would try to, at least.

The words came slowly at first, picked carefully, describing an idyllic childhood among tall trees, in the warm embrace of a large family. The last time Zeb had talked about his family, it had been to entertain small royal kits who begged for stories from their favorite ‘uncle’. The last time he talked about his family, the world had ended.

It became easier the longer he talked. Alex stayed silent, only moving to sip his drink and to reach out for Zeb’s hand. Zeb squeezed his hand tightly as he told of his ascension through the ranks of the Royal Honor Guard, how the Queen herself had hand-picked him as Captain and chief protector. How dearly Captain Orrelios had held his vows.

He told of his erstwhile romance with the lovely Alla who worked in the nursery, an awkward and quiet lasat; he’d never admitted to Alex that he’d loved before, but it didn’t seem to surprise his husband. Alla had been dead for years by the time he’d met Alex, anyway.

Alex spoke for the first time after that, murmuring sympathetic apologies for never knowing, never helping Zeb to remember Alla. Zeb stopped him. How could he have known, since Zeb never spoke of her?

Zeb shook his head and continued talking. The floodgates were open and he wasn’t sure he could stop even if he wanted to. He spoke now of the plans he’d had, for a few years more of royal service and then a quiet retirement when he had a large family of his own. He admitted to giving up on that dream after Lasan fell, even after discovering Lira San and the survival of his species, even after discovering the real Alex. Admitted to believing he no longer deserved such a life. Barely believed he deserved the life he had with Alex now.

He surprised himself with his words. Zeb had always been the one to support Alex through periods of doubt and had helped his husband recover his confidence and self-assurance. Zeb hadn’t realized that he felt the same deep sorrows.

Looking at Alex there on Fest, he saw that husband had known that about him all along, but hadn’t known how to help. Saw that this trip had been a desperate bid on Alex’s part to save Zeb from himself.

He loved Alex all the more for it.

Zeb said so, leaning forward and plucking the mug from Alex’s hands, placing their drinks aside so he could draw his husband into a long, grateful kiss.

Later, they lay in bed, watching the snow drift by through the bedroom windows, wrapped tightly around each other.

“You know, there are plenty of orphans who need a home,” Alex said quietly. “Lasat and human and all species, really. If you want it still, I’d like to have a family with you.”

Zeb leaned down to take a deep, reassuring breath of Alex’s hair. His scent didn’t betray any nerves, anything that might say he was lying for Zeb’s sake.

“I’d like that,” Zeb said after a moment of contemplation. “With you.”

“As soon as we get home, we’ll talk to someone,” Alex promised. “But right now, you need to sleep and rest. What you did tonight was brave and I’m so very proud of you.”

Zeb’s fur bristled in slight embarrassment. He’d just _talked_ , how brave was that? But arguing with Alex would be futile, he knew, so instead he nodded silently, accepting Alex’s praise.

Outside, crisp white flakes swirled around the cottage, dampening all noise except Alex’s breathing and the last crackles of the fire. Zeb fell asleep knowing he hadn’t forgotten Lasan, and never would, knowing he now had someone who was willing to share the burden of memory with him.

For the first time in his life, Garazeb Orrelios felt safe in the snow.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a feels-y short about the bag of Lasan dirt Zeb carries around (according to the Everything You Need to Know about Star Wars book) and mutated into something quite different as I typed.


End file.
